


I Thought of You

by baronwaste



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Masturbation, Story: The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 08:22:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3562814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baronwaste/pseuds/baronwaste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Violet Hunter tells and shows Holmes and Watson what it was like to flee to her bedroom in terror</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Thought of You

“Pardon me, Miss Hunter,” said Mr. Sherlock Holmes suddenly. “Pray repeat what you have just said.”

“I said — I said I was frightened and I hurried back to my own room,” said our client, leaning across the luncheon-table at the Black Swan Inn.  
“No, no, your precise words,” Holmes insisted, leaning forward eagerly.

“Holmes,” I expostulated, “you cannot expect the lady to remember her precise phrasing.”

“I can and I do,” Holmes shot back. “We have made this unexpected journey to Winchester at Miss Hunter’s urgent request, and I have listened closely to her long and remarkable narrative. Details are important, and I desire to hear them accurately.”

I could not argue, for Holmes had unquestionably paid close attention to everything our client had told us, including young Edward Rucastle’s joy in killing cockroaches, Miss Hunter’s visit to the outhouse accompanied by her employer, and of course the remarkable discovery of a hank of vivid red hair that exactly matched her own, though it could not have been her own, in a locked drawer. If he asked to hear some piece of our client’s narrative a second time, there could be no doubt that he considered it of vital importance.

“I believe this is what I said, Mr. Holmes,” Miss Violet Hunter replied after a moment’s thought: “I turned and ran as though some dreadful hand were behind me clutching at the skirt of my dress. I was so terrified that I do not know what I did. I suppose that I must have rushed into my room. I remember nothing until I found myself lying on my bed trembling all over. Then I thought of you, Mr. Holmes.”

“Thank you,” Holmes replied thoughtfully, and was silent for a moment. “Miss Hunter, I ask you to think more carefully about those moments, those minutes, which you say you cannot remember. You rushed into your room, and later you were lying on your bed?”

“Yes, Mr. Holmes,” said our client, her fair skin growing a little pink as she struggled to retrieve the information that would satisfy Holmes. “It is a single bed, with a plain but attractive iron headboard and footboard, and a coverlet of pale blue.”

I could not help reflecting that pale blue was the perfect shade to set off Miss Hunter’s complexion, delicately tinted with the pink of an English rose, and her flashing blue eyes. The loss of most of her magnificent hair, in the circumstances she had already described to us, was of course a great pity, but what remained was attractively trimmed and permitted an admirer to appreciate the elegant shape of her ears, throat and shoulders all the more.

Holmes interrupted my reverie, in which our charming client had unaccountably joined me. “You were lying on your bed,” he said again, “and then you thought of me?”

“Yes, Mr. Holmes,” the lady murmured, lowering her head a little. “I suppose you must hear every detail. Perhaps you would find it helpful if I were to demonstrate exactly how it was?”

“Thank you, that would be most valuable,” said my friend with a sudden eagerness. “If we were at home in Baker Street, our bearskin rug might be pressed into service to represent your bed, but as things are, we must improvise. It is just as well that the linen at this hostelry is known to be above reproach, and especially that you took the precaution of engaging a private room for this conference.”

Holmes reached behind him to fasten the bolt securely on the door that ensured our privacy, while I hastened to sweep away plates, cutlery and glassware from the broad expanse of white cloth that covered our table. Miss Hunter, meanwhile, delicately brushed a crumb from her pink lips, pushed her chair away from the edge of the luncheon-table, then hesitated.

“Go ahead, Miss Hunter,” said Holmes impatiently. “You may do before Dr. Watson anything that you are prepared to do before me. He is to be trusted implicitly, and I remind you that he is a medical man as well as a benedict.”

With this assurance, our fair client swung her person up onto the edge of the table and sat with her delicately booted feet swinging above the level of the floor.

“I am sure I first sat on the side of the bed,” she said, now with some assurance. “Then I must have lain down flat on my back.” She suited the action to her words, swinging her skirted legs onto the surface of the table and settling her shoulders flat, allowing the fabric of her bottle-green jacket to slide over the surface of her shirtwaist a little.

“Supine,” Holmes muttered. “You must surely have had a pillow, Miss Hunter. Allow me.” He reached for the overcoat that had been tossed onto a chair beside him, rolled it briskly, and slid it under our fair client’s close-cropped head and slender neck. She sighed as she settled her head in place, then spread her feet apart, indeed almost to the corners of the table that had for the moment become her bed, and settled both her hands into what I must call her lap. Despite myself I noticed that she was wearing black stockings.

“I lay down on my bed, Mr. Holmes,” Violet Hunter said in an almost dreamy voice. “In my terror at what I had found in that attic, I had run madly down the stairs, as I have already told you, and straight into the arms of Mr. Rucastle. Oh, those arms, so gross and fleshy and strong! And he had so caressing and soothing a manner, as I told you, but just a little too coaxing, so that I was on my guard all the time I was with him. With the greatest of effort I made myself think of — of other things.”

“Indeed, Miss Hunter,” said Sherlock Holmes in a calm voice. “Can you tell me what those other things were? I assure you, it is of the greatest importance.”

“Oh, yes!” the lady replied. I noticed that her body swayed slightly, and the hem of her skirt seemed to have moved upward a little so that her legs were more visible from where I sat at the lower end of the table. “Oh, yes!” she said again. “I thought of — of —”

“Yes?”

“I thought of that sinister passage in the attic, and its forbidding door barricaded with a bar of iron from a bedstead not unlike my own, and a slit of dim light beneath it. Just to picture such a thing in my mind seemed terrifying. And so I turned my thoughts to — to more reassuring matters, to thoughts of music. You know that I have a great love of music, Mr. Holmes.”

“Undoubtedly,” Holmes responded, “although I have not noticed in you, as I have in some other young ladies, the spatulate finger ends that indicate many hours spent at the piano.” Involuntarily I looked at Miss Hunter’s fingers, and observed that they were now moving compulsively back and forth on the surface of her skirt, which seemed to be pressed into a crevice a few inches below the lady’s waistband. It seemed to me that she was breathing rapidly, and I was relieved to know, thanks to my medical experience, that despite her dreadful experiences she was in no immediate danger of falling into a condition of shock.

“A great love of music,” Miss Hunter continued, with a ragged edge to her voice. “I thought of music that had nothing to do with that horrible house, music that has brought joy to my soul and passion to my breath. I thought of Mr. Tchaikowsky’s Fifth Symphony, that magnificent finale, the fury of the Cossack, the clamour of a horde of demons struggling in a torrent of brandy, that pandemonium, that raving!” The lady too was struggling now, her body vibrating atop our linen-covered luncheon table, her hands moving rapidly, her face flushed.

“As I lay there on my bed, I seemed to see Mr. Rucastle’s horrible face leaning over me with that grin of rage, that face of a demon and those fierce teeth! I imagined the dog, too, the great mastiff with which he had threatened me, and I am sure I was shaking with terror. I don’t know which image was the more horrible, and the man and the dog together seemed to be looming above me, pressing down, fouling my body with their rank sweat and hideous breath.” Miss Hunter’s hands were moving rapidly now, though I realized that could no longer see them, somewhere beneath her disordered skirt, and her face was contorted, her eyes wide and her lips open. “Sweat,” she repeated, her face shining. “Breath…”

She said nothing then for a minute or more, her hips rocking beneath her, her still concealed hands in constant motion, her shoulders rising and falling so that her shirtwaist seemed a living thing, her brilliant blue eyes rolling wildly, her breath coming in loud rhythmic gasps. “You,” I heard her moan, “you… there… skirt… devil… more… now! Yes!”

Then Miss Hunter was still, lying limp on the white linen cloth that had twisted and crumpled on the table under the movements of her body. Her breathing, still shallow, grew gradually slower and more even as Holmes and I waited patiently for her demonstration to be at an end.

“Oh, Mr. Holmes,” our client said at last. “That terrifying room, that man, that savage dog! I remember nothing — nothing.

“But when my terror passed, I found myself lying on my bed trembling all over. Then I thought of you, Mr. Holmes.”


End file.
